


Delivering Messages with Gabriel

by crOwnlEssG



Series: Notes Tied to Balloons [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Family, Angel Siblings, Angelic Family, Angelic Siblings, Angels, Archangels, Brothers, Castiel's childhood, Castiel's fledglinghood, Childhood, Collection of stories, Delivering Messages, Delivering Messages with Gabriel, Family, Fledglinghood, Fledglings, Fourth story, Gabe - Freeform, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Greek myth - Freeform, Indian myth, Indian mythology - Freeform, Luke - Freeform, Luke the Prophet, Mini-story, Mythologies, Mythology - Freeform, Notes Tied to Balloons, NttB, Pre-Series, Series: Notes Tied to Balloons, Three chapters, cas - Freeform, stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crOwnlEssG/pseuds/crOwnlEssG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a fledgling, Castiel had a very big, very interesting family. Each story will stand on its own and will consist of three chapters. Fourth story's up: Business trips can turn into roadtrips quickly, and a bit of bonding never hurt... right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i

_Seems like each time_

_I'm with you I lose my mind,_

_Because I'm bending over backwards to relate._

_It's one thing to complain_

_But when you're driving me insane_

_Well then I think it's time that we took a break._

_._

_In Too Deep – Sum 41_

* * *

Slinging the satchel over him, Gabriel made his way out of his Father's throne room.

"Oh come on, Dad, last time wasn't _that_ bad." he exclaimed, turning around. "So I forgot to warn Atlantis that they'd get a leak. You can't take one tiny mistake and use that to base the outcome of the rest of my performances."

The next thing he knew was that he was outside and that the massive doors slammed shut behind him.

Gabriel made a peeved sound. "Figures."

He opened his satchel again to verify its contents. Yep. Seven, as always. He really did not get the fixation with that number around here, but whatever. He had a job to do, and for the sake of getting back into Dad's good graces again, he cannot afford any screw-ups. No mixed deliveries, no late deliveries, no picking up 'extra deliveries', no upsetting the clients in any means.

Sure, he can do this. He was an archangel.

He also had a selectively unreliable attention span.

Nonetheless, Gabriel secured his goods and prepared himself for the continent-hopping he had to do on Earth. He was about to depart when he saw a little blue light streaking the horizon.

A little blue light that was getting bigger and bigger and…

Gabriel was knocked onto his back as whatever had crashed into him sent them both an impressive distance away from where he had last been standing. After checking that his satchel was unharmed, Gabriel turned to look at the culprit.

It was a fledgling, one of his youngest brothers, in fact. His wings were extremely ruffled and Gabriel doubted it was because of the crash. He was a small thing; Gabriel could probably stuff him into his satchel and the kid would still have a lot of room to move around. He chuckled at the thought of abducting one of his brothers just for the fun of it; that was certainly something he had not done yet.

His brother trembled and finally showed signs of recovering from the crash. The stun of the impact probably had not worn off yet judging by how slow the fledgling gathered his bearings. If he was in his right mind, he would have already sensed Gabriel's presence and would back off him and let out a practically endless stream of apologies for even touching an archangel.

The fledgling – Castiel, as Gabriel learned by his Grace – pushed himself up and saw Gabriel for the first time. Castiel literally fell off him in shock and began clumsily scrambling away from him.

"Easy, bro; take it easy. I'm not gonna smite you or anything." said Gabriel, getting up and approaching Castiel.

Castiel scrambled away from him again and used his wings to cover himself. Underneath them, Gabriel could hear him whimpering.

Great.

Gabriel lowered himself to Castiel's level to gently peel his wings from his face. "Hey, come on out. If I wanted to obliterate you, I would've done it by now." he coaxed, later realizing that they were not exactly the best choice of words.

Regardless, that seemed to get a reaction since Gabriel felt Castiel _allowing_ his wings to be tugged aside. Castiel was currently staring at him with big blue eyes and Gabriel had a bit of trouble deciphering his thoughts.

"Alright, what were you doing zipping around the place like you got your wings on fire?" Gabriel asked.

Castiel glanced at his wings, almost like he wanted to make sure that they really _were not_ on fire. "Zachariah assigned me an errand." he said quietly, refusing to look straight at Gabriel. "I was to fetch something from Virgil on the other side of Heaven, and he said that if I don't return within five seconds – " Castiel's eyes widened suddenly and he started to take flight.

However, Gabriel stopped him before he could go anywhere. "Hey, it's too late now. Your five seconds was up when you plowed into me like a comet." he said. Still, five seconds for a fledgling? All the way to the other side of Heaven? That seemed a lot to place on someone like him.

Castiel's expression morphed into utter surprise before pure, gut-wrenching fear replaced it. If he were human, he would be encountering severe medical problems by now, like – what did they call it? – hyperventilation?

"Hey, hey, take it easy there. Relax!" said Gabriel.

His brother treated his words like an order that _should not_ be disobeyed and forced calmness into him. It was strained and fake and Gabriel wondered just how messed up Zachariah really made him.

As if on cue, Zachariah materialized in front of them.

" _Castiel_!" he thundered. "You impudent slacker, I thought I gave explicit instructions to – !"

He stopped immediately when he learned that Gabriel was there.

"Gabriel, sir… I-I didn't realize you were here." Zachariah said shakily, squeezing out a pleasant demeanor and bowing several times.

Gabriel snorted. "Obviously."

That caused Zachariah to stiffen in dread. "Sir, forgive me for my rude arrival. I was simply concerned over one of the fledglings under my care. I didn't want dear Castiel to get lost along the way or… accidentally hurt himself while handling - "

"Yeah, yeah. Listen," Gabriel walked toward Zachariah until he was towering over him; he tried not to laugh when it was clear Zachariah was scared. "As of this moment, Castiel is under my supervision, and this is to be until the time I decide to relinquish him as my charge. During that period, you nor anyone else have no authority to give him any orders. Am I clear?" he asked.

Zachariah trembled, even more so than Castiel. He had questions, obviously, regarding this random order, but he was too terrified to say them. "Yes, sir. Perfectly clear!" he squeaked.

Gabriel gave him a final, penetrating glare before breaking into a smirk. "Great! Glad we had this talk! We should hang out some time!" he said cheerfully.

He snapped his fingers and Zachariah disappeared before he could respond. Somewhere in Heaven, he reappeared and landed into mud.

With that done, Gabriel returned to Castiel, who was looking at him with confusion and wonder.

"Am… Am I really your charge now, sir?" he asked, still kind of shocked at what just happened.

"Yep. And as my first order, don't call me sir; it makes me sounds like a stuck-up bastard without a real life." Gabriel remarked.

Rather than be intimidated, Castiel tilted his head. "But why, si–? Why?" he inquired shyly. "There are other angels worthier of being directly under your service."

Gabriel sat down next to him. "True. But after that little collision a while ago, I thought it'd be best for you to get your dignity back." he said jokingly.

Castiel, however, took it way too seriously and hung his head and wings down in shame. "I'm sorry." he muttered.

"Don't. I get enough apologies everyday for the stupidest of things." he commented. "Come on, flying headfirst into an archangel? That's gotta be embarrassing. And with how things work around here, I bet that already half of Heaven knows about your mishap."

Okay, he _really_ was not good at cheering up his younger siblings.

"My point is, what better way to redeem yourself than having the very rare opportunity of working side-by-side with yours truly?" Gabriel explained, flashing him his best smile.

Castiel stared at him for a long time. "Side-by-side?" he repeated.

"You heard me. You're not my personal lackey, I'm not your power-hungry superior. It's about time we have some equality around here." said Gabriel.

To someone like Castiel, this would be the equivalent of a human child getting a gigantic unicorn for their birthday.

"I'm also doing this because you've obviously been working too hard. What, does Zachariah order you around like that all the time?" Gabriel pointedly asked.

Castiel turned his gaze to the ground, as if even speaking about Zachariah was something he should take great caution in. "Today, he is actually quite merciful." he replied.

 _That_ was _merciful_?

"I rest my case. You need a break, and I could use interesting company." Gabriel declared with finality.

He could tell that Castiel was struggling to keep up with this reality. "What am I to do?" he asked. Castiel still held himself with poise and spoke far too politely for Gabriel's liking. No matter, he would loosen him up.

"You're going to help me with my job as The Messenger, which, really, is just dropping off Dad's mail to a couple of humans." said Gabriel lightly.

Castiel gaped at him, his stare alone speaking volumes. "I…"

Gabriel huffed out a laugh. "What? You didn't think that an awesome archangel as myself would be associated with boring work?" he jibed.

It took a while for Castiel to find his voice. "Are you certain I should be involved?" he asked incredulously.

Gabriel thought about giving him the menacing 'Are you questioning my authority?' line just to mess with him, but he figured his brother had had enough shocks for today. "Absolutely! I mean, are you aware of how fast you are, bro? You flew so fast you knocked _me_ down, and that's saying something. Trust me, if I know you can't keep up with me I would've just let you alphabetize the mail in the office." he remarked somewhat proudly.

For all Gabriel knew, Castiel could be trying to hide into himself again due to shame, or he could be trying to suppress a smile. He was a tough nut to crack.

Anyway, back to business. Gabriel reached for his satchel and unloaded its contents for Castiel to see. "Alright, before we go, I'll explain the basics." he began. "Messages have their own version of hierarchy, namely bronze, silver and gold."

Gabriel picked up one of the bronze Messages and held it in front of Castiel. "This is a bronze, although I think you got that part. Anyway, each hierarchy corresponds to a different content. Bronze holds ideas, like for a new invention or a new way of thinking that would revolutionize the whole joint. Just insert this into the human melon and their creative juices will start pumping like there's no tomorrow." he explained.

He got a silver Message next. "Silver, for dreams and prophecies. It's almost the same banana as the bronze except you gotta put this while the human's asleep. So that's three for the bronze, three for the silver and…"

"One gold," said Castiel, picking up the last Message. Instantly, Castiel's light dimmed by a quarter.

Gabriel quickly snatched it away from him. "Yeah, the gold. You alright there?" he asked.

Castiel looked at him blearily, wings drooping in fatigue, before his Grace replenished the light he lost and he regained his strength.

"Okay. Good. That's a close call." Gabriel sighed in relief.

"What happened to me?" Castiel asked, fear edging his words.

"You just had your life energy sucked out." Gabriel replied solemnly. He held the gold Message out, but paid in mind to distance it from Castiel; he was having second thoughts about letting Castiel help him. "Gold is for declarations. I don't just slip this into some guy's head, I have to read it to them personally and see to it that the numbskulls do what's been written. You can live without the other two, but don't ever take the gold one lightly. Whatever's in it's so important it needs the essence of life to keep the message intact. And judging by how much energy it needs, I'm guessing this is the most important Message yet, like change-the-world-forever-important."

There was silence for a long time.

"How come it's not stealing _your_ energy?" Castiel piped up.

Gabriel smirked and stowed the Messages back into his satchel. "I have a lot of energy I can afford to expend." he said. He got up. "So, you ready?"

Uncertainty flashed briefly across Castiel's face. "Yes." he said.

"Awesome." Gabriel unfurled his wings and he noticed Castiel stumble in amazement at the sight of them. "Would you stop freaking out?" he laughed, though there was a chance he _might have_ intentionally made them flashier than usual. "Oh yeah, you _do_ know how to breathe, right?"

"I'm… aware of the mechanics." replied Castiel nervously.

"Close enough."

In less than a second, they were gone.

O_x

On Earth, in a rainforest at dawn, Gabriel made a perfect landing into his vessel. Castiel touched down beside him soon after. As Gabriel settled into his meat-suit and checked its condition, he noticed his brother staring at him.

"I know, this guy could use a _bit_ of a growth spurt, but he's great anyway." said Gabriel.

"Do I… Do I have to select a vessel as well?" Castiel timidly inquired, and Gabriel had no clue whether his tenseness was because he was talking to an archangel or he was normally like this.

"At your age, not really. I doubt your Grace can handle a soul yet, let alone hearing a human's voice in your head; I can't have you being traumatized by that." he laughed, albeit it was not a joke.

Gabriel stood back a little to inspect his brother's form and essence; Castiel shrank into himself again at being scrutinized. "Hold still." he instructed.

He snapped his fingers.

Castiel looked down at himself and was more than a little surprised at his new appearance. Slowly, he raised his hands in front of him, hands with actual skin, bone and blood, and wiggled his fingers experimentally. He gave his abdomen a tentative poke, and he retracted his hand quickly as if he might upset the internal organs he now had. He wiggled his toes and took a wary first step with his new legs; that caused a lock of his dark hair to fall onto his forehead. Castiel put his hands on top of his head and apprehensively felt the hair he currently had. He let out a sound that could have been both a laugh and a cry of horror.

Conjuring a long mirror, Gabriel chuckled despite himself. "Like it? You'll drive the local virgins wild!" he said, presenting the mirror to Castiel.

Eventually, Castiel got the courage to approach the mirror and see his whole new self. Gabriel watched as fascination replaced fear in his brother's expression, which was presently much easier to read. He looked like a typical child in that get-up, albeit the white and blue robe he had on betrayed his angelic nature a tad.

"Before you ask, that's not a real human body. It's just a convincing façade that'll let you blend in and actually interact with people. And you really do need to work on your social skills." Gabriel stated, getting rid of the mirror.

It took some time for Castiel to respond. "I'm to interact with humans?" he asked diffidently.

"Call it training for when you get a real vessel, plus an excuse to have some fun." Gabriel smirked and ruffled Castiel's hair, to which Castiel reacted by going stiff and shrinking into himself.

Gabriel sighed; he really had to work on getting Castiel out of his shell, show him that an archangel can be his _brother_. "Alright! So, the first Message we gotta drop off is this." He pulled out a silver Message from his satchel, then gestured at a settlement located nearby. "We'll start small first. I'll drop this off to our guy, and for now you watch over the rest of the mail." he instructed, dumping the satchel onto Castiel, who faltered for a moment. "The combined energy of these Messages is usually enough to raise the humans' senses and suspicions that something's going on, and our business prefers to work incognito, know what I mean? We can't have a whole village waking up at the _same_ _time_. So just stay put, keep the energy at a distance, and I'll be back before you know it."

He went and left a flabbergasted Castiel in the dark.

Gabriel fleetingly considered showing a bit more compassion to the kid, like slowing down the turn of events or asking if he was even okay with this. Still, it was fleeting.

As morning officially came, Gabriel imparted the Message to its rightful addressee, who was sleeping on a hammock outside his hut. When he returned to where he left his brother, Castiel was gone.

If he was not under Dad's leash right now, he would be cursing up a storm that will shame the Big Flood.

This was bad; _seriously_ bad. They were not even here for five minutes and he already lost his brother? Did Castiel just wander off on his own? No, he did not seem like the type to do something without asking permission first. Did Dad think bringing him here was a bad idea and pulled him back home?

"Greetings. Is this child yours?"

Gabriel turned swiftly and saw a woman before him, with Castiel beside her. "Yeah, he's with me." he replied smoothly.

"I hope you don't mind that I moved him." she said. "I was on my way to fetch water when I noticed him just standing by himself. He appeared frightened and lost."

He still looked like that now, perhaps more so since a human had a hand on his shoulder, Gabriel noted. "He's just shy. My brother's not used to meeting people." he honestly remarked.

"Your brother?" The woman – Kera – looked down at Castiel, who quickly made his way behind Gabriel to hide. He was actually more scared of coming into contact with a human than an archangel! "Why did you leave him alone? This is not a safe place to disregard children, especially in darkness!"

Disregard? He was totally regarding Castiel! "Well, we're just passing by anyway. I just had to drop off something and we'll be on our way. Besides, Castiel's a big boy." replied Gabriel.

Kera put a hand to her hips and shook her head. "Would you two at least like some breakfast before you go?" she asked.

Gabriel instantly perked at that. "We'd _love_ breakfast, wouldn't we, bro?" he responded, pulling a rigid Castiel from behind and putting him in front.

"Very well. Follow me please." she said, ambling to the right. Gabriel grabbed his satchel from Castiel, as well as his brother's hand, and pursued her.

"Hey, don't be scared, alright? It's just breakfast, then we can set off." whispered Gabriel, patting Castiel's back.

Castiel tried to calm down. "What's breakfast?" he asked a moment later.

It was getting harder not to swear. Did he at least know how to eat? Because if not, they would have an awkward situation. Gabriel was about to explain when he noticed that they were already at Kera's front door.

"Just do what I do." said Gabriel, winking, before they crossed the threshold.

While Kera prepared their food, Gabriel plopped down onto the nearest chair. He then snatched up Castiel (who gave a little squeal in the process) and placed him on top of his lap. Gabriel jiggled his leg to remove the anxiety from his brother, and by the time their food arrived, the sole expression on Castiel's face was curiosity.

It was fresh, honey-coated bread with fruit filling, plus two cups of milk. Gabriel thought that this would be an excellent 'first-food' for Castiel.

"Help yourselves. I'll just be in the next room." said Kera pleasantly as she went through another door.

When they were alone, Gabriel grabbed a piece of bread and started munching on it immediately. About halfway done, he noticed Castiel staring with his head tilted to one side.

Gabriel got a piece of bread and handed it to Castiel. After that, he continued eating his own bread, but at a slower pace so Castiel can follow: open mouth, chew, swallow.

Gabriel was already on his fourth bread when Castiel finally raised his bread to his mouth to take a tiny bite. He gradually chewed twice, and a few seconds later, Castiel's eyes widened and he let out a surprised, contented noise.

"Not bad, huh?" Gabriel remarked, watching his brother chew faster then take a bigger bite.

Once all the bread was gone, the cups of milk were next. This time, Castiel willingly grabbed his own cup. Gabriel sipped once and waited for Castiel to copy. Castiel tipped his cup, and while he managed to drink, most of the milk spilled onto his robe. Gabriel laughed; he really was like a human child.

Suddenly, there was the sound of loud wailing. Castiel was so shocked that he spilled the rest of his milk on him; Gabriel snapped his fingers to clean him up, right before Kera emerged with a baby in her arms.

"Hush, hush…" she cooed.

While Gabriel had been through many tortures in his existence, they were all currently denigrated by the sheer intensity of the baby's crying. Seriously, if he was not on business right now, he will not hesitate to stuff a potato into its mouth simply to make it stop.

"Would you care to hold him? I'll just get him his food," said Kera, stepping forward.

No. No freaking way! Gabriel had nothing against babies, but he was not going to hold a bawling, kicking, smelly, drooling, squishy lump of flesh. He was about to tell her that when Kera knelt down to Castiel. She demonstrated to him how to properly hold a baby, and when she transferred her still-crying son to him, Gabriel felt his brother's Grace leap in surprise.

When Kera left, Gabriel snuck a glance at Castiel, who was struggling with his hold on the baby. "Good luck there, bro." he said cheekily.

Castiel finally got him in the right position, and the baby _instantly quieted down_. Gabriel checked to see what happened and saw that the baby and Castiel were having a sort staring contest, both of them treating the other like he was the most fascinating thing in the universe; what was worst was that they were doing that _on Gabriel's lap_. The baby raised his hand and placed it on Castiel's chest, its eyes growing wider.

"You're not using your powers, are you?" Gabriel whispered.

Castiel shook his head.

Just then, Kera walked in; she was also surprised at the unexpected silence. "Thank goodness he calmed down." she remarked, picking up her son.

He started crying again when Castiel was no longer holding him.

Before anything else could happen, Gabriel got up, grabbed Castiel and made for the door. "So uh, thanks for the breakfast! We'd love to stay and have some more but we got places to go, people to meet…"

"Wait! Take these with you." said Kera, her right hand extended and holding something.

Wind-chimes.

"Uhm… sure. Why?" Gabriel asked, getting them.

Kera struggled a moment with her son. "For your brother." she replied.

He glanced at Castiel, who was as transfixed on the wind-chimes as he had been on the baby. Gabriel wanted to ask more questions but they really had to leave; their cover was already blown.

The second they were outside and out of Kera's sight, they flew.

O_x

They landed on the other side of the world, at the borders of a city in the desert.

"Mind telling me what these are for?" Gabriel asked, dangling the wind-chimes.

"I don't know. I didn't say anything to her." said Castiel, his tone begging Gabriel not to punish him. "But…"

"But?" pressed on Gabriel.

A hesitation. "I was gazing at something similar in another human's dwelling while waiting for you. She must've thought I liked it." admitted Castiel.

"Do you?"

A longer pause. "Yes."

Gabriel rolled his eyes, then chuckled as he ruffled his brother's hair. He conjured a small backpack and gave it, plus the wind-chimes, to Castiel. "Here, put your shiny souvenir in the pack. I can't have you jingling everywhere we go." he laughed.

Castiel did as he was told, and Gabriel put the backpack on him when he was finished. "This time you're tagging along. The entire city's awake so everyone's gonna feel a buzz _everywhere_." he said.

They entered the gates and were soon immersed in the crowd. There were a lot of people still out and about even though it was getting dark; instinctively, Gabriel pulled Castiel closer and quickened his steps. Soon, they reached the building where their next client was holed up in a meeting of some kind. It seemed like he would be there a while. Sighing, Gabriel sat down on the front steps of the building and motioned for Castiel to do likewise.

"We're going to wait?" Castiel asked.

"Unfortunately." grumbled Gabriel.

"Why can't we just go in?" he added.

Gabriel's lips curled into a smirk. "Dad says I should try acting within the boundaries of human rules." he replied. Technically, that was not how He really phrased that; Dad's version was more… descriptively honest, and Castiel did not need to hear that.

So they waited.

A minute later, Gabriel was bored out of his mind.

An hour later, Castiel still looked like he could handle waiting for another century. Meanwhile, Gabriel had been pounding his head against the building due to sheer boredom. He wanted to conjure some entertainment, but _his_ form of entertainment was way too 'eye-catching' and would make the people iffy in an instant. Maybe he could light a fire inside to get the guy out the building already! The next Message was a bronze anyway; maybe it would be for the invention of a fire extinguisher or something.

Then, a little girl skipped along and stopped in front of Castiel. Gabriel raised a brow in interest and leaned forward to see what would transpire.

Castiel and the girl stared for a long time before the latter reached into her pocket and extracted a pinwheel. She then presented it to Castiel; Castiel considered it nervously then turned to Gabriel for guidance. Chuckling, Gabriel made a 'take it' gesture.

When Castiel tensely took the pinwheel into his hands, Gabriel said, "Now, what do you say to the nice girl?"

His brother looked at him, then at the girl. "I don't understand this object." said Castiel.

Gabriel slapped a hand to his forehead. _Say thank you!_ he communicated mentally.

"Thank you." Castiel recovered, flustered.

The little girl giggled, kissed him quickly on the nose, then ran away squealing.

Both angels sat in silence for a while.

"What I tell ya? First day on the job and the local virgins are already all over you!" Gabriel cheerfully remarked.

Castiel squinted at the pinwheel. "But… she hardly touched me." he commented.

Instead of sighing in annoyance, Gabriel released a boisterous laugh. "You'll get the hang of things soon enough." he said, further messing Castiel's already unkempt hair. This time, Castiel actually relaxed and allowed a tiny smile.

The doors of the building finally opened and their next client stepped out. As a breeze picked up, Gabriel took the time to pause and admire how his brother stared intently at the spinning pinwheel in his hands, like a human kid watching something magical unfold.

Getting the bronze Message out, Gabriel had no doubt that having his brother along for this ride was a good idea.

O_x

While Castiel had a better endurance than most fledglings, Gabriel was an angel who was extremely hard to keep up with. Upon reaching Africa, Castiel showed signs of exhaustion and Gabriel thought a five-minute pit-stop would do them good.

Naturally, he made them camp out in a tree-house in the middle of the Serengeti. And since it was nighttime, he conjured a load of pillows too.

"Ahh," Gabriel leaned back against a pile of pillows and put his feet upon another pile. Even though he only came to Earth to work, these were also the only times he could relax decently. He was away from all the chaos upstairs; sometimes he wished he could do this forever.

Tinkling noises broke the tranquility.

He cracked one eye open and saw that Castiel was fiddling with his wind-chimes, all the way on the other side of the tree-house. Gabriel bit back a sigh; his brother was _still_ uncomfortable around him.

Sitting up, Gabriel called out, "Hey, Castiel, come over here a sec!"

Castiel stiffened in apprehension but put down his wind-chimes and crossed over the sea of pillows anyway. Gabriel patted the pillows next to him in a gesture to invite Castiel to sit beside him, which his brother eventually took.

Gabriel wrapped an arm around his small shoulders. "So, having fun so far?" he jovially asked.

It took a while for Castiel to answer. "I'm… contented." he offered.

Better than miserable at least, but Gabriel refused to have him still 'contented' by the time the job was done. He snapped his fingers and Castiel found himself with a zebra plush toy on his lap.

"What's this?" inquired Castiel.

"A toy." said Gabriel. "Since you've been getting freebies lately, I might as well add to the pot."

It was a gift from an archangel, a great privilege very few had ever received, something which Castiel was fully aware of. "Thank you." he said, enthralled.

"Nah, forget about it." Gabriel dismissed. There was silence for a moment. "You're okay with whole globe-trotting thing, right? You're not onboard just because I said so? 'Cuz if you wanna go back, that's fine with me. I won't force you to stay if you're unhappy." he stated.

Castiel stared at him with wide eyes for a long time. This was probably the first time the kid ever heard of a non-compulsory order; it was not even technically an order. All his life he had been directly following orders and rarely had he decided on something on his own, rarely had someone considered what _he_ wanted. And to get this from an _archangel_ was probably blowing his mind.

"I'd like to stay." concluded Castiel.

That made Gabriel smile like a proud brother. Without hesitation, he grabbed a pillow and hit Castiel.

Castiel's 'I-don't-understand-what's-going-on' expression was enough for Gabriel to hit him again. This time, Castiel fell over. Being the unmerciful archangel that he was, Gabriel hit him again despite his brother being down.

"Come on! Are you an angel of the Lord or not?" challenged Gabriel.

Suddenly, a pillow hit Gabriel so hard he went through the walls of the tree-house and landed on the ground.

Gabriel lied there on the grass for a minute.

" _You call that a hit? You throw like a human girl!_ " he screamed, guffawing.

He flew back up, and the first, most epic pillow-fight ever commenced.

TBC


	2. ii

_If you only knew_

_How many times I counted_

_All the words that went wrong_

_If you only knew_

_How I refuse to let you go,_

_Even when you're gone_

_I don't regret any days I_

_Spent, nights we shared,_

_Or letters that I sent_

_._

_If you only knew – Shinedown_

* * *

The next Message was silver, and its recipient was inside the snooty palace beyond them.

Gabriel was about to zap themselves in when a guardsman suddenly slapped handcuffs onto his and Castiel's wrists.

"Whoah, buddy, what gives?" Gabriel asked.

"I am no 'buddy' of yours. And 'what gives' is that you two have crushed the emperor!" he yelled.

Simultaneously, both angels glanced down to find that, indeed, there was a guy underneath them, twitching and moaning in agony.

"Huh, would you look at that," Gabriel remarked. This was the first time angels poofed on top of someone. The man seemed familiar though – what was his name? Something-Caesar?

The guardsman ruthlessly tugged at their chains and Castiel stumbled into Gabriel helplessly. "You two are under arrest! You are to serve time in prison until the day of execution arrives!" he barked, pulling them into the palace.

"And that would be…?" Gabriel pressed.

"At sundown." he sinisterly answered. "You can join the rest of the prisoners in the coliseum; I'm certain the lions would be most pleased by your addition."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Course they'd be pleased. After seeing mooks like you all day, I'd be pleased to see anybody else too." he jibed.

At that, the guard pulled out a whip and stepped into Gabriel's personal space to glare. "Watch your mouth, cretin, or I'll slash you open like a fruit." he snarled.

"I'm quaking with terror." sighed Gabriel.

As they were dragged deeper into the palace, Castiel sidled as close as he could to Gabriel and whispered, "Why are you letting him make captives of us?"

Gabriel smirked. "'Cuz our next client's in one of the prison-cells of this dump anyway; might as well get there the old-fashioned way. "'Sides, wouldn't it be cool if you got to tell your pals back home that you went to jail?" he replied.

His brother fearfully looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

They went down a winding, narrow staircase where the light got dimmer and dimmer. Within minutes, the three of them were walking along dank corridors with cell after cell passing them by, and every cell, as it seemed, already had occupants. The guard led them to the cell at the end of the line, where only a man was there, curled up on the floor and sleeping.

The guard opened the cell, undid their cuffs and boorishly kicked Gabriel in first. While hitting his head on the stonewall will not grant him a bruise, it still kind of hurt. He turned around in time to see the guard lift Castiel off his feet and throw him to the cell's floor like trash; Gabriel quickly caught his brother before he totally went sailing.

"How're you doing, small fry?" he asked.

Castiel blinked up at him for a moment, still a bit shocked. "I think I'm bleeding." he murmured.

Normally, something as physical as bleeding was no biggie for angels, but Gabriel decided to check anyway. "Alright, where is it?" he asked.

Avoiding his gaze, Castiel muttered an "I'll heal it." under his breath.

Gabriel raised a suspicious brow. "Sure. Heal away. Now where is it?" he pressed.

Castiel shifted uneasily and the slightest whimper was heard.

"Castiel, if you don't show me where you're hurt at the count of five, I am full-on stripping you in front of all these other prisoners. One... Two..." Gabriel threatened.

At three, very slowly, Castiel lifted the bottom folds of his robe away to reveal an extremely nasty scrape across his leg. It was still bleeding and did not look like it was healing. Gabriel realized that, since the meat-suit Castiel was wearing technically was not a real vessel, Castiel was not really all that 'connected' with it, which meant healing it was next to impossible for him to do.

Gabriel placed his hand on the wound and when he pulled back, the skin was as good as new. He had to be more careful with his brother from now on.

Setting Castiel aside, Gabriel stood up and walked over to the bars of their cell. Just a few meters away, their ever-chipper guard was arguing with a janitor who held an upward mop in his hands, muttering something about 'keeping the place dirty so the wretched scumbags here can wallow in their godforsaken filth'.

As the argument dwindled down, Gabriel beckoned Castiel over before snapping his fingers. Suddenly, the guard slipped on the wet floor and crashed face-first into the mop-head, which caused him to further lose his balance and he ended up having his bum into the bucket. Throughout that fiasco, the guard managed to knock over one of the torches and it landed by his sandals… sandals made of apparently very flammable material.

Gabriel snickered to himself as the guard ran away, shrieking like an old lady, with a clueless janitor and an uproar of laughter from the cells in his wake.

"My work here is done, or most of it, I guess." said Gabriel.

The man in the far corner of their cell began to stir, probably woken up from all the commotion outside. Castiel broke away from Gabriel and gradually approached the man, curiosity getting the better of him. He was about to put his hand on the man when Gabriel cleared his throat.

"Castiel, what did I tell you in these kind of instances?" he nagged.

His brother stared at him for a while, nodded then conjured a stick, which he used to poke at the man.

This was one of the proudest moments in Gabriel's life.

Eventually, the man showed promising signs that he was not on the road to the afterlife when he grabbed the stick from Castiel's hands and threw it to the other side of the cell. "What?" he grumbled.

"Rise and shine, pal! You got two new roommates and we're itching to know the neighborhood." said Gabriel merrily.

The guy muttered irately and curled into himself more, like the two of them would go away if he ignored them long enough.

Gabriel walked over to the opposite wall, picking up Castiel along the way, then plopped down to sit. "So, what're you in for?" he casually asked, because they might as well talk while they were in here.

At first, the man did not seem keen on answering. "I declared so-called 'blasphemies' that upset the government and society, as well as questioned the emperor's dictatorship." he replied.

"Nice." Gabriel remarked. "Me and my bro got turned in for squashing Caesar in public!"

That finally got the man to sit up and turn to them. "How did you – ?" Upon getting a decent look at them, he fearfully scrambled further into the corner. "No. No, no, no, no, no, no! No! Motherfu– !"

"Hey!" Gabriel interrupted, placing his hands over Castiel's ears. "No cursing around my little brother. You can do that when it's just the two of us, but I can't have you traumatizing him."

The man stared at Castiel disbelievingly for a long time, as if just noticing he was there. "Traumatize him? What about me? I'm scarred for life!" he screamed.

"Please, you're over-exaggerating, Luke." dismissed Gabriel.

"I'm in here because of you! You and this brainwash you've been administering! Horrid, senseless pieces of shi– !"

"Which reminds me," Gabriel stuck a hand into his satchel and fished out a silver Message. "Time for your daily dose of the future!" he said in a singsong voice.

Luke was distancing himself from them, albeit his eyes remained on Gabriel. "NO! Not again! These are my final moments of sanity and I will not have them wasted!" He scurried to the bars and started throwing himself at them like some deranged mudskipper. "Guards! Guards!"

Eventually, Luke became a cross between a mudskipper and a really awkward orangutan. It was not a pretty sight.

Gabriel stood up and went over to Luke. "Come on, Luke. Here comes the yummy prophecy; open up!" he coddled, waving the Message around like a treat and placing his hand on Luke's shoulder.

Luke aggressively shrugged him off. "Don't touch me you…!"

Gabriel snapped his fingers and made Castiel deaf, then made him face the wall in case he read Luke's lips.

Luke's swearing lasted for five straight minutes. Gabriel was impressed.

"You done or are you getting your second wind?" asked Gabriel, returning Castiel's hearing.

Still recovering, Luke glared at him before letting out a frustrated yell. He ran to another corner where there were a discarded bowl and spoon and picked them up.

"Stay back! Back!" he shouted as he brandished the objects like a sword and shield; except, that method would have been slightly more effective if he did not treat the bowl as the sword. "Don't test me. I'm armed with a bowl! I… I know basic trigonometry!" he spouted.

Suddenly, Castiel snuck up beside him (probably wondering what Luke was doing so he got a closer look) and startled Luke so much that he stumbled, slipped, knocked his head on the bars and collapsed to the floor in an unconscious, bloody heap.

"Well, that's one way of knocking him out." commented Gabriel.

A snap of his fingers and Luke was patched up, although he was still out. Gabriel knelt down and slipped the Message into his noggin; when he got up, Luke's eyes started to flicker under their lids and his fingers twitched. Another snap of Gabriel's fingers and Luke was zapped back to his house, tucked in bed and safe.

Gabriel caught Castiel's wide-eyed expression. "What? He'll be fine. One time, Luke ended up being trampled by cows – a very miserable death, if you ask me. And reviving him wasn't so glorious either." he said.

Castiel still had that unnerved expression on him.

"How 'bout we split already?" Gabriel asked.

O_x

They landed in a remote valley on a remarkably cool afternoon.

"Hmm… I know our next guy's around here somewhere," said Gabriel, scouring the fields.

"Is that him?" Castiel inquired, pointing.

Gabriel followed the direction he was indicating; sure enough, he could make out the top of a man's head peeping out of the bushes. "Good job." he said, ruffling Castiel's hair, and this time he appeared to enjoy it.

He got his brother's hand and they went over to their next client, who happened to be a passed-out drunk with half a bottle of wine spilling from his hand. It seemed like someone partied real hard last night, if the bottle, black-eye and hickeys were anything to go by. And now he was going to get a Message from God that would go along with his psychedelic-booze dream. Awesome.

Gabriel was struck with a thought. "Hey, wanna jam the Message into his skull?" he asked his brother.

Castiel stared at him for a second before shyly turning away. "The task of an archangel… I couldn't possibly besmirch…" he muttered.

"I told you that you can help and that's what you're going to do." said Gabriel. "Now you either ram it into his brain or I'm dumping his drink down your throat."

The terrified look Castiel had on was absolutely priceless.

Gabriel burst out laughing. "I'm kidding! No one's dumping anything down your throat." he chuckled.

He got the last silver Message from his bag and gave it to Castiel, who regarded it like it would eat his face or something. His brother glanced at their conked out guy then at Gabriel with extremely worried eyes.

"Go on! In this condition, it looks like he can sleep through Raphael's hissy-fits. He won't bite." placated Gabriel. He pushed Castiel a little and he nearly staggered into the man; his brother squealed at that.

After calming himself down, Castiel spared a last glimpse at Gabriel before cautiously approaching the man on his own. Very timidly, he lifted the Message as high as his arms could and inserted it into the man's head bit-by-bit. Despite that Castiel was being seriously slow in doing this, Gabriel noticed that he had a nice steady hold. Maybe with a little more practice, Castiel can become a messenger too.

A minute later, the silver Message was gone and Castiel stood back to marvel at his accomplishment. It was actually kind of a heart-warming sight.

"Hey you hear that?" asked Gabriel, attention moving onto something lively. Even Castiel heard it and his focus also shifted. "Let's check it out!"

Gabriel scooped Castiel into his arms as they went deeper into the woods, until eventually they found a very interesting, energetic clearing. There were (really hot) nymphs dancing everywhere, satyr-bands playing music in random spots, and people gulping down food and chugging down wine like the liver was a figment of the imagination. And the best part was that there were a hundred tables all over the place – very long, very wide and very heavy with the huge cakes on top of them.

"Sweet!" exclaimed Gabriel.

"Look, everyone! New faces!" declared a nymph.

There was an explosion of applause, followed by humans and nymphs running over to greet them. They each presented jugs of wine in their hands and Gabriel thought that it was a welcoming gift.

Then they all threw the wine at him and Castiel and cheered louder.

Best. Greeting. Ever!

Castiel wrapped his purple-red arms tight around Gabriel's neck as a dazzling figure stepped out of the crowd. "Welcome to our festive gathering! It's always a pleasure to have more people join in the merry-making! I'm Dionysus." he introduced, placing a hand on top of Gabriel and Castiel's shoulder. "That's quite an energy you two have in there, too much to be human." he observed.

Castiel's grip around Gabriel's neck became tighter and Gabriel could not blame him.

"Name's Loki." replied Gabriel smoothly. It was the alias he was using increasingly lately. "And this is Byleist." he added, pointing at Castiel, who gaped at him incredulously.

"Ah, northern gods. It's such a delight to have you here!" said Dionysus, clapping once.

"So, uhh… What's the occasion?" Gabriel asked, gesturing at the area.

"Anything you want! Birthday, wedding, a successful hunt… The point is to be happy and wash your sorrows away." chirped Dionysus.

"I hear that." agreed Gabriel.

Castiel shifted in his hold. "Gab–" he began, before Gabriel covered his mouth with his hand.

"Play along." whispered Gabriel. He returned to Dionysus and abruptly changed the subject to derail his suspicions. "Say, how's about a couple of gods like us have some friendly competition?" he proposed.

Dionysus seemed intrigued. "Of what sort?" he prompted.

"Wine-drinking, food-eating contest. The guy who packs down the most, wins. Just harmless fun." said Gabriel. Really, this was merely an excuse to indulge in as much junk as he could on a limited time.

"You are aware that I'm the god of wine? This hardly counts as a competition." Dionysus remarked.

"So I guess you have nothing to worry about." retorted Gabriel.

Castiel was dreadfully looking at Gabriel then Dionysus alternately as if he was watching a death-match unfold.

"Very well. Harmless fun. I'll meet you in the center table." said Dionysus, clapping Gabriel twice on the shoulder before disappearing into the crowd.

"Brother," Castiel whimpered.

That was the first time he called Gabriel brother, and it stopped him from following Dionysus for a second. "Don't tell me you wanna leave now," he sighed. He wiped some wine off Castiel's face in an attempt to soothe him. "This isn't blasphemy, alright? I'm not upstaging Dad or anything; we're still incognito. If I'll make my round with Dionysus quick, will it make you feel better?" Gabriel asked.

Castiel nodded deliberately.

"Okay. In the meantime, loosen up! Have fun! Make friends!" exclaimed Gabriel as he started walking.

Castiel tensed at those words. "But I – "

A slice of cake was promptly stuffed into his mouth and shut him up. Castiel blinked in shock for a moment before he slowly began to chew on the cake. It did not take long for him to stuff his face into the frosting and make very satisfied noises.

"That's better." said Gabriel, patting Castiel on the back. "Make the most of your time here. When's the last time there's a party at home?"

Castiel looked up from what remained of his cake to reveal his face covered in frosting. "Heaben nehber – " he started with a mouthful of cake.

"We never get parties, exactly! All the more reason to be here." Gabriel pointed out.

By the time Castiel was licking his fingers, Gabriel spotted a group of kids playing nearby. They would do. When Castiel sensed Gabriel was about to put him down, he reached for his neck again and held on for dear life. Gabriel sighed and tugged at his brother, but Castiel refused to budge. Gabriel pulled harder yet Castiel remained firm. Finally, Gabriel made his neck ghost-like so when he pulled at Castiel, he just helplessly went along with it.

"You be good now. There's a law here about underage drinking, but I think you'll slide. Barely." joked Gabriel as he placed Castiel on the grass. He tousled his hair twice as vigorously before turning tail to find Dionysus.

Vaguely, he heard Castiel stumble after him. Then he heard a much louder sound from some of the kids:

"Hey! It's a new kid!"

"Let's throw cake at him!"

Splattering noises followed afterward.

"And no smiting anybody!" Gabriel added over his shoulder.

O_x

"You're a highly worthy adversary." Dionysus remarked. He finished off another keg of wine and threw it to the rest of the pile.

"Not so bad yourself, hotshot." said Gabriel, eating the last of a cake.

Dionysus regarded the cake and wine yet to be consumed. "This could go on for days." he stated.

"I'm so fine with that."

"I concur."

As Gabriel was about to start on another cake, he looked around to check on his brother but found no sign of him, visually or with his Grace.

Then, he saw one of the kids he left Castiel with walk by. "Hey, you! Where's Ca – Uh, Byleist?" he asked.

"The new kid?" the boy inquired. "Maenads took him some time ago."

Maenads. Not good.

Gabriel stood up. "Sorry, pal. We'll have to cut this short." he said.

Dionysus shrugged. "More wine for me then." he said, working on another keg.

Gabriel's search started off on a brisk walk, then eventually a fast run that knocked down a lot of humans (and a wall) in the process. Dad was going to kill him if he lost a fledgling to maenads.

"Hello there. Is this bundle of sweetness with you?"

He stopped so hard he upturned a big chunk of earth. Gabriel sought out the source and was met with a group of ladies under the shade who were either swigging wine or dangling on trees. In their midst was Castiel, who Gabriel hardly recognized since he was coated in frosting. But the weirdest thing about him was that his brother seemed… way too relaxed and happy around the maenads. Usually in these situations, Castiel would be scared-stiff and run toward his savior of a big brother.

"As a matter of fact, yes." said Gabriel guardedly. When a maenad picked up Castiel and alternately kissed his cheeks and tummy, Castiel just giggled and did not protest. "What did you do to him?" Gabriel asked seriously.

"He was so tense before." said kissy-maenad.

"Nervous." said another, twirling a lock of Castiel's hair.

"Jumpy." Another maenad.

"Scared."

"But with a little wine," Or more like a whole mountain of wine judging by how many kegs they 'hid' in the bushes.

"Funky incense," The same amount went to the incense. A maenad held Castiel up by his feet like a baby monkey and started swinging him back and forth.

"And lotus-flowers," A maenad produced a lotus-flower from her bosom.

"He's better, better, better! Wheee!" A maenad hanging upside-down on a tree grabbed Castiel's ankles and, with another maenad in the next tree, began playing a combination of trapeze artist and catch. Castiel had a dreamy smile on his face.

"You fed him lotus-flowers?" Gabriel practically yelled. Angels normally did not have to worry about suffering from their effects since they have immunity to things like that; however, Castiel was still a fledgling, and his immunity system had yet to fully kick in.

"They don't grow here locally."

"They're presents from a friend."

"Rarities. Delicacies. Emergencies only."

Castiel fell from the trees but a maenad thankfully caught him. "He's such a precious emergency." she said, smothering more frosting on him. The maenad beside her leaned in and tried to offer Castiel a lotus-flower.

For the first time, Gabriel felt something he never thought he would around women: disdain. "Much as I appreciate dragging my bro outta his shell, I'd rather he do it on his own." Gabriel gathered a now dazed Castiel into his arms before he got fed again. "We're leaving."

Simultaneously, the maenads got to their feet and dropped their carefree demeanor.

"We can't let you do that." one of them said forebodingly, showing bloodstained claws.

Gabriel and Castiel were surrounded now. Suddenly, monstrous clouds rolled overhead and it became dark; lightning tore through the sky and Gabriel's wings – huge enough to cover the whole clearing – flashed threateningly to the maenads, but a source of wonder to Castiel. The maenads drew back in fear, to which Gabriel just smirked.

"Kiss my smokin' hot ass, bitches." said Gabriel.

After a powerful, blinding strike of lightning, both angels were gone.

O_x

Gabriel landed in a dim alley. It was obvious that the effect of the lotus-flowers was wearing off on Castiel when clarity reentered his eyes. Gabriel placed his brother on the ground. "You holding up there?" he asked.

Castiel stared at him with too wide, too glassy eyes until he looked down to where his feet were uneasily shifting. His shoulders began to quiver and it was not long before Gabriel noticed he was crying.

"Hey, hey, what's the matter?" he asked, kneeling down to level with Castiel. Gabriel gently lifted his brother's chin so that they were face-to-face; tears were rolling down Castiel's cheeks and he was doing everything he can to avoid eye contact.

"I'm sorry we had to leave because of me. I knew you like it there." he muttered. And though Castiel did not say it, Gabriel knew he also felt ashamed for getting entangled with the maenads.

"Yeah, well, I like my family better. And in the right head!" said Gabriel cheerfully, ruffling Castiel's cake-covered hair. This time, Castiel let out a squeal of laughter.

The moment was interrupted when a lump appeared under Castiel's robe and started moving around.

Gabriel sat back in surprise. "What's that?"

Castiel blinked and glanced downward, appearing as surprised as Gabriel was. Gingerly, he reached down into his robe and pulled out a small bunny.

There was a moment of silence, one that was too awkward for Gabriel.

Finally, he sighed. "I'll bite. What's a bunny doing under your robe?" inquired Gabriel.

Castiel and the bunny were having a full-on staring contest, and Gabriel had to remind himself to keep his brother away from small life forms for the time being unless he wanted staring contests to be a regular occurrence. It was amusing and disturbing at the same time.

"Maenads must've put it there." Castiel murmured distractedly.

He had his head tilted to one side, and strangely the bunny copied the action. When Castiel tilted his head to the other side, the bunny also followed. That time, Castiel's cake-smeared cheek was brought closer to the bunny, which the bunny immediately took advantage of by squeezing out of Castiel's hold a bit and nibbling on the sweet coating.

Castiel was thrown into a fit of giggles; either he was naturally ticklish or Gabriel had accidentally equipped his sorta-vessel with way too much human features. The bunny was squirming out of his fingers, almost to the point of popping out of his hold. Castiel hunched up his shoulders to sort of shield himself from the bunny, but the bunny still clung onto him.

"Gabriel's licking the frosting off me!" sniggered Castiel.

Gabriel raised a brow at that. "I'm doing what?"

Castiel quickly pulled the bunny away from him and it was like he realized that Gabriel was still there with him. "I… I named it Gabriel." he said shyly.

There was no reaction appropriate enough for this situation. Gabriel was caught between being offended or touched by it. However, as the bunny started licking at Castiel's neck and got his brother to laugh so freely, Gabriel smiled fondly and had to settle for the latter.

All of a sudden, a girl in pigtails ran toward them and plucked Gabriel-the-bunny from Castiel.

"My bunny!" exclaimed Castiel as the girl vanished into a crowd.

"No big deal. You can always get another." said Gabriel. Upon turning to his brother, he saw that Castiel was looking at him with dewy, puppy dog eyes. He sighed and wondered when he had become so weak. "Come on."

He snapped Castiel clean and placed him on top of his shoulders to get a better vantage point. Gabriel took them out of the alley and into a noisy marketplace. It was around midnight and yet the place was insanely packed with people; this was going to be a long search.

They dived into every crowd, passed countless stalls, but as the night went on, there was still no sign of their thief. Gabriel was already considering conjuring a fake Gabriel-the-bunny just so they could move on. They still had mail to deliver after all, and the stench of dead fish and yakking stall-owners were getting on his nerves.

A while later, he felt Castiel tugging at his hair. "What?" he asked.

He glanced up to see Castiel pointing at a stall they just passed, one that sold all kinds of interesting masks. The girl was not there, but Gabriel decided to humor his brother and retraced his steps; besides, some of the masks there looked pretty awesome, and there was no shopkeeper around so they could stay as long as they wanted.

Gabriel put Castiel down so he could pick out what he liked. At first, he just blinked and stared at the masks before selecting a butterfly-themed mask. He had trouble figuring out how to put it on so Gabriel had to strap it on him then take him to a mirror to study himself. The verdict was another head-tilt.

"Try these. They're way cooler." said Gabriel, giving him a wild, elaborate bird-themed mask with a beak, wings at the sides and feathers practically exploding everywhere. When the mask was on and Castiel was at the mirror, he let out a cry of shock and fell on his bum.

"Told ya." snickered Gabriel.

He opted to leave his brother alone to do his own thing, which left Gabriel to browse the masks hanging on the highest shelf of the shop. His eyes landed on a brass lion mask; it was an excellent example of craftsmanship, but for kids who do not know any better, it was one scary piece of crap.

Gabriel snuck a glance at Castiel, and when he discovered that he was occupied with examining a turtle mask, Gabriel's mischievous attitude sparked back to life. Quickly, he put on the mask and crept behind his brother until they were almost touching. Gabriel tapped his shoulder, and when Castiel turned around, the expected scream-and-scramble result was met and signified a job well done.

Gabriel took off the mask, both to show Castiel that it was merely him and so that he can laugh properly. True, it was a bit cruel, but Castiel had that coming since that pillow-fight incident, and the look on his face was priceless!

His laughter ceased when he realized Castiel was crying. Not like back in the alley, but really crying, with big tears rolling down his eyes like they would never end, and he was shaking so hard it looked like he might fall apart any second.

"Take it easy, bro; it's just a joke. There's no need –" Castiel backed away from him the nearer Gabriel got, and the more he distanced himself, Gabriel felt something sink down further into his stomach, like shards of glass.

He felt like a total jackass now; he did not mean to get this far. At the most, he had assumed that Castiel would just be shocked for a few seconds then blow the whole thing off. Gabriel stared at the lion mask he still held in his hand, already having half a mind to incinerate it when suddenly it hit him:

Lion.

Zachariah.

Great; out of all the masks, he just had to pick that one. Gabriel threw the mask away and crouched down as near as he could to his brother. "He's not a fun guy, huh?" he asked, and without even specifying it, Castiel knew that he had caught on and slowly shook his head.

Gabriel sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. He needed a different tactic. Searching the area, he found a neighboring shop that sold musical instruments, and he figured that was a good way to redeem himself.

Luckily, the owner also was not there, which was lousy for the town but great for Gabriel. He snagged the least threatening instrument from the shop and slowly approached his brother. "They're called maracas. Humans use 'em to play music." he informed, showing the colorful pair to Castiel. Gabriel gave them a little shake and they made a friendly sound.

Castiel wiped the tears from his eyes as he studied the maracas, suddenly intrigued. Gabriel shook them a couple of more times, and eventually Castiel was comfortable enough to inch closer and reach for them. Gabriel placed them carefully into his hands and waited.

For an extremely long moment, Castiel merely stared at the maracas, as if doubting their harmlessness. Then, he tentatively shook them. When nothing bad happened, he shook them again, and again, and again, until he was smiling and laughing.

Gabriel took that as a good sign. He walked toward the edge of the crowd to continue searching for the bunny, wanting to let Castiel relax before joining him again. That pigtailed twerp was around here somewhere…

His focus was suddenly disrupted by loud crashing noises.

He turned around to see that Castiel had traded the maracas for cymbals, and he looked extremely happy with them. Castiel then made a louder, faster succession and his grin became wider.

"Glad you're not in the choir upstairs." chuckled Gabriel.

Castiel giggled and Gabriel was so glad that he was not crying anymore. Castiel was about to clash the cymbals again when he blinked and tipped his head upward. "Smells good." he said.

Gabriel sniffed the air and smelled the warm, tangy aroma as well; it did smell good. He had not realized he spaced out when he felt Castiel pulling at the end of his robe, urging him to let them investigate.

"I thought we're trying to find your bunny?" Gabriel reminded. Castiel had the puppy-eyes on him again, and something that smelled as good as that could only mean food…

"Five minutes tops, got it?" said Gabriel.

Castiel nodded. Gabriel grabbed his brother and they ran.

O_x

The good smell was apparently from a newly-opened noodle stand, and to celebrate its opening, it was giving away one free cup of noodles per customer. And the noodles tasted way better than they smelled.

Gabriel was sitting on a bench, enjoying his noodles. Castiel chose to sit on Gabriel's shoulders, using his head as a table to eat his noodles. Gabriel was fine with that; the only problem was that Castiel was a sloppy eater who kept spilling noodles and other stuff all over his hair.

"One day, I'm teaching you table manners." said Gabriel.

Above him, the slurping sounds continued, undeterred. The next thing Gabriel knew, a cup fell onto his lap and Castiel was virtually bouncing on his shoulders.

"My bunny!" he yelled.

Gabriel instantly stood up and scanned the area. In less than a second, he saw their pigtailed target. He placed Castiel on the ground and they swiftly made their way to her.

"What's the big idea stealing my brother's bunny?" demanded Gabriel. And that was perhaps the weirdest thing coming out of an archangel's mouth.

The girl flinched, holding the bunny tighter. The man beside her – her dad – turned around and regarded his daughter and Gabriel with the utmost worry.

"You stole that? Return it at once!" he exclaimed. He did not sound annoyed though, but concerned and scared. Gabriel did a quick background check on their family and learned that they were poor and had already lost the wife due to taxes. The last thing they wanted now was to cause trouble and be further broken.

Reluctantly, the girl handed Gabriel-the-bunny back to Castiel. "It's supposed to be my younger sister's birthday gift." she whimpered.

As if on cue, a smaller girl peeped out from behind the father's legs; she looked even younger than Castiel, or his sorta-vessel anyway.

"A thousand apologies. I won't let this happen again." said the man, and Gabriel noticed just how tightly he held onto his daughters, like they were everything to him.

Surprisingly, Castiel stepped forward to the girl in pigtails. "How much do you love your sister?" he seriously asked.

"Very much. I'll steal hundreds of other bunnies if I have to." she replied.

Castiel looked like he was thinking really hard about something. "You can keep the bunny." he said.

The whole family, plus Gabriel, was stunned. "Thank you! She'll be so happy!" cried the girl, taking the bunny and hugging Castiel at the same time. Castiel, of course, went completely rigid again.

Gabriel placed his hands on Castiel's shoulders to calm him down as both of them watched the small family have a group hug – older sister hugging little sister, dad hugging the pile of them. It was a nauseating, sentimental mush that Gabriel found himself yearning to happen to his own family.

Finally, the family broke apart and began walking. However, Gabriel pulled the girl in pigtails back before they got too far away.

"Before you run off, I've got another present." he said. He took a bronze Message from his satchel. "This time, it's for you."

Gabriel slipped the Message into her head, an idea for an invention that would help them get the good life. As the girl became dazed from absorbing the Message, the angels left.

O_x

"That was nice of you back there." commented Gabriel.

They were walking several miles outside the city they just left. Technically, Gabriel was the only one walking; Castiel was sitting on his shoulders, and the reason he was there was because he said he was tired. Gabriel did not blame him; they had a long day, and the little guy was probably still mourning the loss of his bunny.

"It seemed right." muttered Castiel hazily. He was holding his pinwheel up in one hand and snuggling his toy zebra in the other. Behind him, he had his wind-chimes attached to a long, sturdy stick, which stuck out of his backpack so whenever Gabriel took a step they would jingle.

Castiel placed his cheek on Gabriel's hair like a pillow. "What's Father like?" he asked.

Gabriel nearly tripped on a rock. What was Dad like? Aside from the cryptic answers, assigning angels a mega-crap-load of crap to do, the occasional 'selective hearing,' locking Himself up in His room all the time by Himself, the tendency to flatten archangels (mainly Gabriel) with a comet the size of Jupiter if they screwed up on a job, practically leaving the angels on their own…

"Dad's great. He'll never disappoint you." said Gabriel.

That seemed to satisfy Castiel since he remained quiet, nuzzling more into Gabriel's hair. For a while, it seemed the peace would last.

Then Gabriel smelled the scent of cake and heard Castiel munching carelessly above him.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember Luke? The "You should've seen Luke." Cas mentioned in 4x18? ;)
> 
> Also, 'Byleist' really is Loki's brother!
> 
> And for those who aren't familiar with the lotus-flowers, look 'em up! :D


	3. iii

_Ten miles from town and I just broke down_

_Spittin' out smoke on the side of the road_

_I'm out here alone just tryin' to get home_

_To tell you I was wrong but you already know_

_Believe me I won't stop at nothin'_

_To see you so I've started runnin'_

_._

_All that I'm after is a life full of laughter_

_As long as I'm laughing with you_

_._

_Life After You – Daughtry_

* * *

After they had dropped off their sixth Message in Australia, Gabriel realized they were ahead of schedule and decided not to let the extra time go to waste.

"I am uncertain about this." said Castiel.

Gabriel made a ' _pfft'_ sound as he brought Castiel closer to the building's ledge. "No brother of mine is chickening out on delivering justice. Now give me a battle-cry, Castiel; come on!" he exclaimed, patting/pushing his brother on the back.

Castiel stumbled and made a noise that sounded like a kitten stepping over its own tail.

"We'll work on that later." sighed Gabriel. He handed Castiel an empty ostrich egg (which he swiped and reassembled _after_ the chick had hatched) and watched his brother turn it over worriedly.

"Is this really considered as justice?" Castiel asked.

"Duh! Why do you think I bothered liquefying fifty miles' worth of stinky cheese?" retorted Gabriel, gesturing at the stock he had behind them. He placed both of his hands on Castiel's shoulders and started working on them akin to preparing a boxer to fight. "Remember, you're an angel. You got a lot of heavy juice inside that you should use wisely. And what better way to do that than by totally abusing it?"

His brother had that perplexed head-tilt thing again.

Gabriel rolled his eyes and wordlessly declared to get the first shot. He conjured another empty ostrich egg and peered down the ten-story building to locate a target. It was weird using ostrich eggs as casing, but it was the only convenient thing on Earth that can be filled with something _and_ not cause severe bleeding to humans. Besides, ostrich eggs were the biggest variety the planet currently had, and for what they had to do, bigger was better.

After a minute of skimming the crowd below, he found someone promising: a fifty-two-year-old guy who deliberately left behind his wife's mother's box of heirlooms in a blizzard to make room in the cart for booze and opium.

Gabriel let the egg fall, filling it with vomit-like cheese by the time it passed the fifth story, then putting an additional mousetrap or four in there just for kicks.

For one glorious moment, there was nothing better than hearing the splatter-snap-and-scream response. For Gabriel, that would trump any stupid choir they got upstairs.

"Ha! Bull's-eye! Now you do it." he said, pushing Castiel forward until he was pressed against the ledge.

His brother nervously stared at the egg in his hands. "I don't know what – "

"Please, that's a fucking load of bullshit and you damn know it." Gabriel casually interrupted. When he noticed the unexpected silence, he looked down to see that Castiel had perhaps the most appalled expression ever. "What?"

There was at least two more minutes of horrified silence from him. "You just swore at me." replied Castiel quietly.

Gabriel shrugged. "It's actually more of a compliment, but yeah I guess. Someone's gotta introduce you to the real world, might as well be me." he said, smiling and ruffling Castiel's hair; however, Castiel remained ogling him like any disturbed little brother would. "So are you gonna pick a target or what?" asked Gabriel, returning him to the task at hand.

It took a bit longer for Castiel to shake off the shock before he refocused on his egg. "What should I fill it with?" he asked.

"Beats me. Your ammo, your idea, just make it creative." stated Gabriel.

Castiel studied his egg for an excruciatingly long time before turning to the people below. Gabriel watched him peruse the crowd unblinkingly, not that they needed to blink but the sheer concentration the kid had was unnerving, even for angel standards.

Eventually, Castiel dropped the egg onto a thirty-eight-year-old man who crashed parties to steal food and money from the guests, only then to break into the house to get the inheritance of the birthday celebrant.

Sand exploded from the egg upon impact.

"Sand? Come on, you can do better than that." said Gabriel. Castiel lowered his head and shrank into himself, probably ashamed for disappointing an archangel. Gabriel looked down and saw that Castiel's target was still there, disoriented and covered in sand and eggshells; there was still a chance, despite the fact that Castiel was now a nervous wreck.

Suddenly, Gabriel had an idea and leaned down to whisper into his brother's ear, "Imagine Zachariah making an order to wipe out all the bunnies on Earth."

Castiel's eyes practically burst out of their sockets; he got another egg and hurled it at the man with more force than necessary. When the shell broke, strings of firecrackers sprung out and draped the man, followed by two hooks big and heavy enough that when they dug into the man's pants, they pulled them down. The firecrackers began popping all over, causing the pants-less man to awkwardly run around screaming until he bumbled over to a manure-wagon. A second later, one of the firecrackers burnt the latch on the wagon, causing its load to fall onto the man.

Gabriel was unable to turn away from the masterpiece that was his little brother's work. " _Yes!_ There we go! That's my bro right there! He shoots, he scores, and the crowd goes _wild_!" he shouted proudly, throwing Castiel over his shoulder and running a victory lap around the roof.

He was impressed; he can conjure almost anything out of thin air but Castiel was not an archangel, so he had to summon real objects from who knew where, and that had taken a lot of work. Still, it warmed Gabriel's (metaphorical) heart when he heard Castiel breaking into squeals of laughter behind him, like a regular kid.

"Where are they going?" Castiel inquired all of a sudden.

Coming to a halt, Gabriel put his brother down so they could check what was going on. There were more people below now, but they were all heading for one specific direction, and they were doing it fast.

"Someplace fucking awesome I bet!" said Gabriel excitedly. He saw that Castiel was staring at him with an appalled expression again. "I am so glad I get to be myself around you." he remarked. He got his brother's hand and with a snap of his fingers, they were on the ground and following the crowd.

"Gabriel, why do people swear?" asked Castiel, and it was a good thing that the other people could not hear him over this much noise because then it would be really awkward.

"'Cuz a lot of 'em don't do it, which makes it fun and exciting, which makes them _wanna_ do it." Gabriel answered.

If Castiel had enough room, he would be doing that head-tilt again.

And that was the last thought Gabriel had before pink chalk powder hit him in the face.

For a moment, he felt a surge of wrath go through him because, for one thing, he was an archangel and while he was less uptight with the whole I-demand-respect deal, he just got hit in the face with chalk powder! And the worst part was that it was _pink_!

When he wiped the stuff off him, he saw that the whole city looked like it was being vomited upon by a million rainbows. Literally everywhere, people were throwing colored chalk at each other like their very existence depended on it. Gabriel did a quick sweep of the place and when he found out there was not any threat (other than the obnoxious guy beside him yelling "Hail Prahalada!" over and over), he let out a long, low whistle.

"Is this fucking awesome or what?" Gabriel cheerfully said to Castiel, who looked utterly bewildered at what was going on, but otherwise subtly smiling at the pink chalk on Gabriel's face.

Then it dawned that Castiel was also very clean and chalk-free, which was most likely because he was using Gabriel as a shield against any colorful projectile, not to mention he was too small for the majority of people to see and make him a target.

Not for long.

Gabriel conjured a handful of orange chalk onto his palm and regarded Castiel mischievously. "Bro, say hello to my little friend!"

Castiel may be naïve when it came to… frankly, a lot of things but he knew an attack when he saw one. He just ran out of there like it was the end of the world, nanoseconds before the orange chalk hit the spot where his little ass previously had been. Gabriel gave chase and just like that _it was on_!

Being an archangel had its advantages, such as being able to conjure as much ammo as he needed whenever he wanted, so he just kept hurling chalk even though he was not hitting his brother; it was still fun targeting humans mercilessly. And he could also locate Castiel's Grace easily so Castiel really cannot hide here and he knew it. But damn, even when he was moving on legs the little guy was crazy-fast, which was all the more reason why Gabriel was determined to nail him.

After going through the ten miles of crowd and color-hysteria, Gabriel finally got him on the back, although he was a tad disappointed to see that there were already a load of colors splattered on Castiel, which meant that he did not get the first hit. Then again, when Gabriel looked down at himself, he had gotten a lot more additional hits during the chase.

Angels did not breathe, but Castiel seemed absolutely breathless when he stopped and faced him. However, the large grin he had on put Gabriel at ease as he picked him up.

"We really should get back to work," said Gabriel. Castiel's shoulders gradually slumped and his grin was replaced by pleading puppy-eyes. Gabriel sighed in surrender; he would never hear the end of it from Raphael if he found out that he had become a softie. "I got to hit a hundred and fifty-seven of these suckers. How many did _you_ get?" he asked challengingly.

Castiel blinked. "What makes you so sure I hit people?" he calmly replied.

"Because if you didn't, that'd make you a wuss for not taking out easy target. And I don't have wusses for brothers." said Gabriel good-humoredly.

Castiel lowered his head a bit and Gabriel could see the slightest smile creeping up. "A hundred and fifty-five." he murmured.

Gabriel felt his eyebrows go up. "Wow, just down by two. Tell ya what, we'll settle for a tie. Just nail two more saps then we're outta here. That sound good?" he asked.

His brother nodded. He then reached into his pocket and his hand emerged with blue chalk powder, which he promptly threw at Gabriel's face.

It took a couple of seconds for Gabriel to register what happened. Yeah, he really should have seen that one coming; at least it was better than pink. Opening his eyes, he saw Castiel trying, but failing as always, to suppress his giggles.

"Alright, wise guy, you got a lucky shot. Let's see you get that on someone else where the sun don't shine." said Gabriel, putting his brother down.

Castiel looked around, but it was apparent that both of them had run off to the very edge of the 'battlefield' and now it appeared that the crowd had moved on. Crap, now they really had to look for someone, like a straggler.

Gabriel scoured the area ("The things I do for family," he mentally sighed) and eventually pinpointed a man hiding behind a barrel three buildings away from them. Snapping himself clean, Gabriel turned to tell Castiel of his next victim.

The only problem was that Castiel was gone.

This time, Gabriel was unable to hold down a sigh of aggravation. Why must he keep disappearing on him? It was a good thing the kid had yet to learn how to mask his signature; otherwise, this would take a while. The moment Gabriel honed in on Castiel's location, he snapped his fingers and traced it.

When he reappeared at the outskirts of a temple, he saw that Castiel had already selected a target – a woman who was sitting down lotus-style and had her back turned to them – and was preparing to fire. However, when Gabriel realized who it was, and discovered that his brother was oblivious to his would-be prey's identity, he lunged for Castiel, hoping to stop him before he threw the chalk.

Unfortunately, he was too late.

Gabriel quickly snatched up Castiel just before the jets of fire hit him. "I hope you're happy 'cuz you just pissed off a Hindu goddess." he hissed. Still, it was not entirely Castiel's fault; that chick had one wicked cloaking spell over her that had Gabriel impressed.

" _Who_ DARES _to disturb me from my meditation?_ " Kali shrieked.

For all Castiel's worth, he was trying his hardest not to cower in fear, but it was obvious that he was close to burrowing his head into Gabriel's robe. Gabriel, meanwhile, put his game-face on and stood his ground as Kali approached them, still very much aflame.

Kali stopped two feet in front of them, and she probably figured out they were not human since she actually turned the heat up. "The small one seems guilty." she snarled.

Castiel whimpered and squirmed in Gabriel's hold. "Could've been anyone, hot stuff." defended Gabriel smoothly.

Somehow, the fact that Castiel was still covered head-to-toe in every colored chalk imaginable did not sell it to Kali.

"Fine. He did it, whatever. But cut him some slack, he's just a kid. I mean, weren't _you_ young and utterly clueless once?" said Gabriel casually.

"You have exactly five seconds before I roast you like a pig." Kali seethed.

Acting on instincts, Gabriel did what any rational being with a mountain of power would do: he pulled Castiel as far back as he could then leaned in to kiss Kali on the lips.

And just like that, it was as if all the chocolate in the world melted into his mouth and poured onto his Grace.

When they broke apart, the silence that came afterward still buzzed with… whatever was left over from the last five seconds.

"What was that?" inquired Kali, no longer on fire.

Gabriel threw a noncommittal shrug. "Call it a peace-offering." he said, smirking. He remembered he was still holding Castiel awkwardly somewhat behind him and placed his bewildered brother down in the middle of him and Kali. "Now, bro, say you're sorry to her." he added.

"I apologize." said Castiel, a hint of a squeak in his voice.

Kali towered over him and gave Castiel the most piercing, unyielding inspection ever; it was almost enough to make Gabriel twitch. It was possible that she would lash out then barbeque him on the spot, and Castiel knew it.

"Your brother throws well." said Kali eventually, running her hand through Castiel's hair, and if they were not undercover right now Castiel would be slumping his wings out in pure relief. Kali straightened up and began walking away. "And your so-called 'peace-offering' needs work; it was weak." she added without turning around.

For Gabriel, that was the equivalent of having his Grace stabbed with a fork. " _Weak_? Babe, that was a solid ten outta ten right there! Okay, eight at least, but I don't do 'weak'." he exclaimed as he marched beside Kali.

"Congratulations, now you have. And don't call me babe." Kali indifferently replied.

"Hey, you associate me with weak, I can call you whatever I want. Babe." he said, and the last word made Kali stop and consider him with an expression that was both unemotional and peeved. "Of course, ifyou can dish out something better, _maybe_ we can work out a tiny compromise – "

He was cut off when Kali knocked him to the ground and pinned him there with her hands, all four of them. Gabriel lied there with his cheek pressing hard against the dirt for a while; he made an experimental little struggle but it was clear that he was not going anywhere.

"And here I thought you couldn't be any more pathetic." whispered Kali into his ear. Gabriel's vision was kind of limited at the moment, but it seemed like Kali was about to do something, only to stop.

"Please don't hurt my brother." said Castiel.

The distraction allowed Kali's grip to slacken enough for Gabriel to retaliate and push Kali to the nearest pillar of the temple. The impact of hitting the carved stone was so intense that chunks of the ceiling fell off and her second pair of arms jolted back to wherever she usually kept them. As the tables were officially turned, Gabriel flashed her a smirk.

"Like I said, I don't do weak, Kali." he said.

Kali stared at him, undeterred and impassive. "You know me but not the other way around. So do you have a name or do I have to label you 'imbecile' forever?" she responded.

There was the slightest moment when a hint of tenseness ran through Gabriel's form, something that happened every time his name was asked. "Call me Loki. Although 'awesome' works too." he replied lightheartedly.

"Cute." said Kali. "Now back off before I pulverize your bones."

Gabriel rolled his eyes but did so anyway. "Not much for salsa then, are you?" he quipped.

As Kali brushed herself off, Gabriel noticed his brother cautiously making his way over to them, as if expecting another scuffle to occur at any time. He chuckled and gestured for Castiel to come over, assuring him that everything was fine. Castiel ran fast to him and adhered himself to his leg with so much force that Gabriel went unsteady for a second. The little guy was definitely getting freaked out about what was happening; Gabriel tousled his hair more gradually than usual in an effort to calm him down.

"I'm going to the river to get this muck off me. You can clean your brother there too if you want." said Kali, exiting the temple. And it was only then that Gabriel saw where Castiel's blue chalk had hit her: at the nape of her neck, which went farther down her back after the short fray they had.

It later registered to him that Kali had given them the closest thing to an invitation, the second right after he noted that Kali was starting to take off her clothes.

He looked down at Castiel, and for once, he was thankful that his brother looked like a rainbow had coughed him out. Gabriel swiftly carried him into his arms and followed Kali to the river.

"But I don't need – " Castiel began.

"Shut up. You're taking a bath." said Gabriel.

O_x

"Brother, this is really unnecessary. I can always clean myself in an instant." said Castiel. It was hard to tell whether he was simply stating a fact or he was saying that in an attempt to preserve what dignity he had left.

Probably because Gabriel had stripped him down to his underwear and made him sit on the shallow part of the river like a little duck. Probably.

Luckily (or maybe hopefully), they were out of Kali's earshot and there were not any people around so that should at least save what self-esteem his brother had to begin with. But they were just near enough for Gabriel to check out Kali's… entirety without being too suspicious.

"Gabriel, I feel odd like this." Castiel piped up.

"That's how first times always start out. You'll be fine." assured Gabriel, glancing at Kali every three words.

Castiel shifted in the water. "I don't think I'm getting clean." he said.

Sighing, Gabriel came to the conclusion that his attention will be an unsatisfying two-way street unless he would take care of his brother first. He looked down at Castiel and saw that the part of the water he was in was tinted with bleary colors, but he was still far from clean. Gabriel snapped his fingers and a whopping load of shampoos, soaps and bubble-baths appeared by the bank. Sure, he could do this. He watched humans do it a dozen times whenever he passed by a river or a pool; bathing his brother would be a piece of cake.

Now which of these bath-crap should he put first?

"Aw, to hell with it." he muttered. He grabbed everything and dumped them into Castiel's spot. After sneaking a glimpse at Kali and making sure that she was not watching them, Gabriel dipped his index finger in the water and spun it until a small whirlpool appeared. When he took his finger out, the whirlpool kept spinning and spinning and getting bigger…

Eventually, it got so big that Castiel got sucked into it; he cried out a bit before the growing foam enveloped him and muffled the sounds. The whirlpool lasted for about ten seconds before it dissipated and Castiel's dark, free-of-chalk hair surfaced from the foam. Gabriel actually had to sift through the mass of bubbles before he unearthed the rest of his brother, whose pale skin only had a couple of blotches of chalk left.

"Bet you're glad your undies didn't wash away, huh?" Gabriel joked upon seeing Castiel's stunned, 'holy-crap-did-you-just-did-that-to-me?' expression. "How're you doing, bro?"

Castiel opened his mouth and was about to say something when he burped out bubbles instead. He clamped his mouth shut with his hands in shock as Gabriel just stared and strived not to laugh because _that was simply priceless_! Unfortunately for Castiel, it appeared as though there was a lingering, bitter aftertaste in his mouth and he had to spit out some pinkish-blue liquid that Gabriel suspected used to be a bar of soap.

"That's gotta suck. Here," Gabriel opened his palm and revealed a ball of chocolate.

Castiel eyed it distrustfully.

"Just eat the chocolate. Please?" added Gabriel, and as an archangel that was the last time he was ever going to use that word in a nice way.

Still no movement from Castiel.

"Do I have to swear again before you eat this?" Gabriel asked exasperatedly.

That finally got his brother to extend an arm and reach out for the chocolate. Castiel took a tentative bite out of the chocolate and hardly a second passed when his mouth hung open and his eyes looked as if they would explode out of their sockets.

"Whoah, hey, what's wrong? Swallowed a bottle of shampoo there?" laughed Gabriel, albeit hiding the worry in his tone.

His brother slowly shook his head before gulping down the tiny bit of chocolate. "I like chocolate very much." said Castiel, smiling. He proceeded to eat the rest of the treat.

Gabriel tipped his head back and sighed. "Jeez, give a guy a heart attack, why don't you?" he mumbled.

Castiel tilted his head. "Why would I give someone a heart attack?" he inquired.

Instead of humoring his brother, Gabriel stood up and started navigating the large stones to Kali.

"Brother, wait!"

Gabriel turned to see his brother half out of the water. "Can you please give me more chocolate?" Castiel asked timidly.

"Can't you just zap some on your own? You did it with the cake last night." Kali could be done with her bath any minute. If Gabriel was not in such a rush, he would have entertained his brother using a nicer tone.

His brother shrank back a little but, apparently, the desire for sweets overpowered the fact that an archangel got annoyed with him. "I summoned the cake from Greece. I don't know where to summon the chocolate." replied Castiel.

"If I tell you where to get the nearest chocolate – " Gabriel started.

"No. I want _your_ chocolate. Please, brother?" begged Castiel.

Gabriel refused to look at him, because if he did he would see those blue puppy-dog eyes again and he really did not know how much more of that he can handle. "Alright, fine! But after I give you your chocolates, no more bugging me, okay?" he sighed.

At Castiel's nod, Gabriel snapped his fingers and a large bowl of chocolates appeared, floating to Castiel on a piece of wood. His brother actually beamed at the sight before stuffing his hands, then his face, into the bowl; Gabriel vaguely wondered if the sweet tooth gig ran in the family.

"That's not healthy for him."

Gabriel's head whipped to the left to see a fully-clothed Kali observing them from atop a boulder. So much for sneaking off in time and having a bit of fun.

"Don't worry your pretty little ass, he'll be perfectly fine. Besides, he needs the energy, right, bro?" Gabriel called out.

Briefly, Castiel looked up from the bowl and blinked at him, which was as much of a response as he could get.

"Ah, kids. What're you gonna do?" said Gabriel in a laidback attitude.

Kali sent a stream of fire racing across the water, incinerating the bowl of chocolates. Gabriel and a chocolate-smeared Castiel looked up at her with a mix of shock and indignation, which Kali returned with a glare. "Your brother fights, doesn't he?" Kali asked.

Gabriel and Castiel spared a glance at one another. "I'm still learning." answered Castiel warily.

"Yeah, and when he's done, he'll kick the ass of anybody who destroys chocolate." warned Gabriel, because as hot as Kali was, _no one_ should mess with angels and their chocolate.

Kali crossed her arms and sat down. "As a warrior-in-training, he shouldn't be exposed to such awful sustenance. He needs the best to build strength, speed and endurance. And as a child, he needs to grow well with an unpolluted body, physical as well as spiritual."

When Gabriel looked at his brother, his face was still covered in chocolate. "So the physical body needs a little work, but his spiritual one's squeaky-clean." he said.

She gave him one of those 'I-won't-even-dignify-that-with-a-response' glares.

Then, Gabriel heard what had to be the third most annoying voice ever in his existence:

"Kali, _baby!_ How you doin'?" drawled a newcomer. He had a head that mostly resembled a lion rather than a man, something that caused Castiel to hide behind a rock.

"Hiranyakashipu." Kali greeted without looking at him.

Hiranyakashipu chortled and wrapped an arm around her. "Aww, well now don't you make the cutest water chimp ever. Who's a cute little water chimp? You are! Yes, you are!" he coddled, nuzzling his nose at her. A second later, he was energetically making out with her.

Gabriel admitted that he did not know Kali enough, but even he knew that this was something she would never tolerate, especially not without a fight. His hunch was justified when he saw Kali _trying_ to escape from the guy's grip.

He tapped Hiranyakashipu's shoulder. "Uh, hey there!" Gabriel half-introduced himself and half-intervened. Just as he planned, the two broke apart and stared at him incredulously. Then, Hiranyakashipu punched him in the gut twice.

"What was that for?" exclaimed Gabriel, because that really _hurt_!

"Those were for touching and talking to me." snarled Hiranyakashipu. He punched him again; Gabriel stumbled. "That's for interrupting me and Kali." Another punch, causing his satchel to fall to the ground. "And that's for being new around here."

Gabriel spat out a trickle of blood from his vessel's lips. He was so going to cream this bastard!

As if sensing his thoughts, Hiranyakashipu snickered. "Go ahead, have a strike at me. I'm _indestructible_!" he bragged.

"He's right. He's been given a boon." said Kali grudgingly.

"And I can do whatever I want and no one's there to stop me." Hiranyakashipu pressed on arrogantly. Great, as if the planet needed more pricks who went overboard with power.

"Funny, I thought Prahlada posed as a threat. Isn't that what the whole celebration in the city was about?" interjected Kali. And _there_ was the take-no-crap fighter attitude Gabriel liked.

For a few seconds, Hiranyakashipu stared intently at her before slapping her hard. "Isn't she adorable? She thinks she's making sense with words. Silly dame." he chuckled, pinching the cheek he slapped. He pulled her into another make-out session; this time, he sprouted an extra pair of arms for more groping action. It was a good thing Castiel was behind a rock.

Gabriel separated them with ease. "Alright pal, I think she gets the message. If she wants to have the absolute worst excuse of an intercourse in her life, she'd come straight to you." he said.

The rage Hiranyakashipu displayed was really animalistic. He swung at Gabriel's face but this time Gabriel was faster and smoothly dodged it. Stunned, Hiranyakashipu tried again, yet Gabriel simply leaned slightly to one side to avoid it. As Hiranyakashipu glowered at him in shock, Gabriel just smirked.

"I don't have time for this." grumbled Hiranyakashipu as he stomped away.

Gabriel stuck out his tongue at him once he was gone. "Swell guy. Reminds me of someone back home." he remarked.

"You shouldn't have." said Kali.

"No big. I do this outta the – "

"No really, you shouldn't have." Kali cut in, walking away to the opposite direction.

Typical.

Gabriel noticed Castiel gradually wading out of the water now that the commotion was gone. His brother was looking at him expectantly, and Gabriel winked at him.

"I guess it's time to work on a side-project." he said.

O_x

"Loki, this is insane." said Kali.

"Exactly! Cool, huh?" said Gabriel.

They were hiding behind a building, an achievement that had taken Gabriel five hours of persuading Kali to tag along. But it would be worth it. He got the details from Kali, he told Castiel to go wherever he wanted and the trap was set for Hiranyakashipu; the dick was going to get what was coming to him (and this could get Gabriel into Kali's good side).

Basically, Hiranyakashipu was going to round the corner and trigger a landmine nicknamed 'Heaven's Wrath,' which would trigger a lot more mines from every direction. Indestructible Lion-head will be cut down to size for sure.

Just then, movement was heard beyond the building. There was a presence approaching and it was definitely full of power. Once the being was close enough, Gabriel snapped his fingers to get the power up and going and let hell break loose.

Frankly, he expected a lot of things… but a child-like scream amongst the explosions was not one of them.

Gabriel stopped everything and went around to check what was going on. What he saw made him want to barf his wings repeatedly: "Oh no. Castiel!"

He did not care that he had just said his brother's real name out loud in front of Kali; Castiel was sprawled on the ground, scorched and bleeding heavily. Apparently, Gabriel had mistaken Castiel's energy as Hiranyakashipu's, and he just wanted to kill himself for being stupid.

As Gabriel ran to him, he noticed Castiel holding a satchel close to his chest – _his_ satchel – and he realized that he had forgotten it at the river. Castiel was probably trying to return it like a good little brother; poor kid must have searched high and low since Gabriel did not tell him where he went. But the real kicker was that, throughout the explosions, Castiel had used his entire body to protect the satchel, which consequentially exposed himself to the whole blast.

"Castiel, are you alright?" Gabriel frantically asked, and that was a really stupid question. Castiel just had a taste of pure archangel power, meaning that his true form got more damage than his physical.

Castiel's body was trembling from the sheer effort of sitting up; blood continued to flow from his wounds and it seemed that his healing was not working. When he lifted his head and saw Gabriel, Castiel let out a cry and started backing away from him.

"Brother, please, it's me." said Gabriel gently. He could practically hear his brother's panicked thoughts: _'ThatwasGabriel'?Ishemadatme?Ishould'vegiventhesatchelsooner,Ishould'''twanttobepunsihed.I'.Getawaygetawaygetawaygetaway!'_

Gabriel slowly reached for Castiel's arm; however, the moment his fingertips brushed against skin, a spark flared up, leftover power from the explosions, and Castiel immediately drew his singed arm back with a frightened yelp. The momentary shock caused Castiel's wings to materialize for less than a second, but Gabriel saw that one of his wings was one nudge away from being broken. Castiel was crying now.

"I am so sorry! Brother, I – "

A terrified Castiel took off before Gabriel could finish, taking the satchel with him.

This was not happening. His brother was severely injured and scared of him and he could be anywhere on the planet!

A light and warm hand landed on his shoulder. Gabriel turned to see Kali considering him with unusually compassionate eyes.

"Go after him." she said softly.

She did not need to tell him twice.

O_x

Castiel dropped into a rainforest. It hurt to move, let alone fly; his healing was blocked by the power of the explosions. He should return to Heaven; there was no way he could survive on Earth for long. He had never been so scared in his life.

Gabriel almost killed him. He could not go back to him, ever. Castiel felt the tears coming up again when he looked back on the things they did together; he thought Gabriel liked him, he thought he finally had someone who treated him like a real brother.

His eyes found Gabriel's satchel he accidentally brought with him. Castiel thought about leaving it behind since delivering messages was not his duty, and there was no way he was going to Gabriel. But the last Message was the gold, the most vital that will change mankind and possibly everything; this was his Father's biggest Will.

Castiel decided that he will deliver the gold Message, for his Father and the humans. He slung the satchel over his shoulder and hissed in pain at how it weighed down on him. Already, he can feel the gold Message inside gradually sipping at his Grace. Castiel faltered when he straightened up, both from his injuries and the Message, but forced himself to recover and flew.

After a while, his wing was hurting again and he had to land on the coast of an island to rest. When the pain was bearable, he took off again. It did not take long for his wing to sear with pain again, forcing Castiel to stop in a mango grove, then an empty house, a hillside, on top of a tower…

Eventually, he crash-landed near the base of a snowy mountain in the evening. His mind was so clouded with pain that he could not get his body to move accordingly. When he opened his eyes, he saw three men huddling by a fire; maybe they could help treat his injuries.

One of the men noticed Castiel and smiled. "Look what we have here, boys. A little bug to squish!"

That was when the man's eyes turned black and Castiel flinched. They were all demons.

"Let's see how far his guts splatter!" said another as they sauntered over to him.

Castiel stiffly, shakily stood up and desperately thought of a way to defend himself. His wing still hurt too much to fly, he had no weapons and he had yet to learn exorcism. Then, he remembered what Gabriel did to scare the maenads away; he could do that.

Once the demons were halfway to him, Castiel gathered his bearings and flashed his wings as menacingly as he could at them. The demons were shocked; for a while, Castiel believed that he had a chance of escaping, but then the demons cracked similar feral grins and continued approaching him.

"Ooh, our bug's actually a butterfly!" exclaimed the third demon. "Wings first, guts after."

Before Castiel could even try running away, the demons pounced on him and pinned him to the ground. They punched, kicked and clawed at him, and Castiel already could barely move with the inflictions of his previous injuries. Everything hurt so much he wondered if he was going to die.

Suddenly, Castiel heard a ripping sound that did not come from his robe or skin. He pulled his bloody arms away from his face to see that the satchel had been torn open and the gold Message rolled onto the ground. The demons became more interested in it and abandoned Castiel to study it.

However, the second they touched the Message, there was screaming and a blinding golden light; when darkness returned, there were ashes where the demons once stood. Castiel remained on the ground, thunderstruck and grateful at how holy the golden Message had to be to be able to disintegrate demons. Unfortunately, now that the Message was removed from the satchel's protection, plus the fact that there was no other living creature around, there was nothing to stop it from quickly sucking away Castiel's life force.

The first siphon knocked him back down onto the snow; his surroundings were spinning and tilting for some reason and it was like there was an elephant sitting on him. Castiel felt weak, could not think well, but at least the process was painless, numbing actually. It was a struggle to remember that he still had to deliver the gold Message, and even more of a struggle to lift himself up. He had to do this; he cannot let his Father's plans go to waste.

After a long time, Castiel finally managed to stand up, which just made the world spin more dramatically that he had to lean on the mountain to keep himself upright. Yet as seconds passed, more and more of his energy was sucked away, and the scenery alternated from tilting uncontrollably to fading to black. Nonetheless, Castiel made out that the satchel was destroyed and could no longer contain the gold Message, and his backpack was not fabricated from the same material so it would be useless as well; that meant he had to hold the Message.

Once he had the Message, he pushed himself off as hard as he could.

He barely reached the clouds when the Message siphoned so much out of him at once that his wings failed him completely and he plowed into the snow on the cliff of the mountain. His backpack exploded upon impact and its contents went everywhere.

Castiel could not feel his wings anymore, and his Grace was rapidly approaching that point. He could not feel his wounds that were so agonizing mere minutes ago, he could not feel anything except the cold. He could not move, his consciousness was blurring and so was his sight. It was so freezing… why was he freezing? Why was it so hard to keep his eyes open?

He felt something by his head. Castiel peeled an eye open and saw that, beside the gold Message, was his toy zebra. With what strength remained, he pulled the zebra to his chest and snuggled into it; at least now he would not be so alone.

"Ga'riel…" he feebly called out.

O_x

"Castiel? _Castiel!"_ Gabriel may not be able to track his brother, but he could still trace the path of the gold Message. Soon, he found himself in front of a mountain in the middle of winter, and it looked like a blizzard was coming in a few minutes.

Gabriel was scouring the area when he spotted a pile of ashes nearby; from the lingering smell of sulfur, he knew they used to be demons. That caused his eyes to widen. If demons were around, then Castiel could be in more danger than he thought; he had to find him _now!_

Trailing the final length of the gold Message's trail, Gabriel touched down virtually at the top of the mountain, where the blizzard had already arrived and totally unmerciful. This was bad, if Castiel was here in his poor condition…

He stopped thinking and grimly focused on finding his brother. Castiel was here, he was sure of it, but Gabriel still could not sense him, and the gold Message was not under his radar anymore either. Please, Dad, let him be fine.

All of a sudden, he heard something tinkling faraway, and in a place like this, it was the best lead he got. Gabriel walked through the snowstorm head-on; the tinkling became more pronounced and eventually he located the source: wind-chimes hanging on a protruding rock.

 _Castiel's_ wind-chimes.

And that was when he saw him.

"Castiel!" Gabriel ran to his brother and wasted no time in digging him out. Castiel was unconscious and so far under snow that it was almost impossible for him to be spotted, but he had him now and everything was going to be alright.

By the time Gabriel cradled him in his arms, he noticed that Castiel's skin had gone completely blue from the cold; he was not breathing, his heart was not pounding and there was hardly anything left of his Grace. At the corner of his eye, Gabriel noticed that the gold Message was still sucking on Castiel's energy and he brusquely kicked it away in anger.

"Hey, come on, bro. Up and at 'em!" said Gabriel, shielding his brother from the winds. After a minute of no response, Gabriel let heat and a bit of his Grace trickle into Castiel.

"Come on; come on!" Gabriel was shaking him now, but the only movement Castiel showed was his head lolling back and forth. He was still blue, his heart still was not beating.

Gritting his teeth, Gabriel pressed his palm on Castiel's forehead and healed his wounds plus his wing, thinking that his brother's Grace could be more focused on waking him up, because Gabriel refused to accept Castiel was dead. He put in more warmth and Grace into him but he knew he could not keep this up for long or else Castiel's form would explode from overload.

After several minutes, it was obvious that his brother would not wake up. He was too late.

Gabriel held Castiel close to him as he trembled with grief. "I'm so sorry." he wept. He was the big brother, he was supposed to take care of him and he screwed up big time. He was so sorry; given the chance, Gabriel would take his place in an instant.

"'rother,"

Gabriel went rigid with disbelief and joy; it was barely above a whisper but that was Castiel's voice. Right on cue, Castiel was weakly coughing out some melted snow down Gabriel's back. "Easy, kid; I gotcha." he cooed, running a hand down Castiel's back comfortingly.

"'m s'rry." slurred Castiel.

"Don't; I'm the ass here, _I'm_ sorry." said Gabriel, pulling his brother down and wrapping him into a hug; he was still blue but he was alive!

"Cold." he mumbled.

"Yeah, I know. I'm getting you back to Heaven pronto." said Gabriel as he stood up.

Castiel faintly shook his head. "Message."

The gold Message was precariously on the edge of the cliff and losing its glow fast; one gust of wind was all it would take for it to plummet.

"Right now, I care more about my brother than any stupid mail." said Gabriel.

Castiel shook his head again and burrowed himself into Gabriel's robe, as if trying to get his _own_ message across. And that was when Gabriel realized that, if he took Castiel home now, then all his efforts of making it this far with the gold Message would have been in vain.

"Alright, we'll make it quick." Gabriel sighed. He picked up the gold Message and placed it in the back pocket of his robe; predictably, the Message was siphoning _his_ energy now, but better him than Castiel. Afterward, Gabriel picked up his brother's things as well, though he placed the zebra next to Castiel as a sort of pillow. "If you wanna know, you were going the right way. Good job; I'm proud of you." said Gabriel fondly.

Castiel weakly smiled and leaned into him more. "Who's the message for?" he asked.

Gabriel smirked as he gingerly ruffled Castiel's hair. "Some virgin that's supposed to give birth to the 'Savior of Mankind' or something." he replied, and even when he was near-frozen, Castiel was giving him that head-tilt. "I don't get it either. But hey, you'll get to see history in the making. And maybe if the virgin sees how adorable you are, she might be more inclined to take up the job." he laughed.

Gabriel took flight, albeit choosing to fly more gently. There were fireworks going off in the distance, and for the moment, they could pretend it was for them.

Fin (for this mini-story).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, the chalk-throwing thing was Holi :)


End file.
